Archive | April, 2015

On a mission to “reinvent the hotel,” Ace Hotels have popped up in a range of popular and unexpected places with a style all their own. The London property, located in the trendy, artsy Shoreditch neighborhood, features a spacious lobby designed with the single traveler in mind, with partially partitioned spaces that allow you to relax “while still staying a healthy part of the hive.” In the U.S., six on-site eateries and a two-minute walk to Powell’s City of Books make Ace Hotel Portland another intriguing option for those traveling through the City of Roses. The London, New York, Seattle, and Portland properties offer a range of small rooms perfect for the solo traveler, but all Ace Hotels, smartly appointed with vintage furniture with a focus on public spaces, make for a smart choice for those looking to meet new people on the road.

MUNICH – Munich will open a museum on the former site of the Nazi party headquarters Thursday, in a long overdue reckoning with the German city’s status as the “home of the movement”.

The new Nazi museum in Munich, southern Germany, on April 29, 2015.

The inauguration coincides with the 70th anniversary of the “liberation” of Munich by US troops at the end of World War II, and of Adolf Hitler’s suicide the same day in a Berlin bunker.

Ageing American veterans and Holocaust survivors will join political leaders for a solemn ceremony at the new museum, a modern white cube built among a few surviving neo-classical buildings in what was the Nazis’ organisational nerve centre.

Museum director Winfried Nerdinger admitted that it had taken Munich too long to face up to its toxic legacy as the birthplace of Hitler’s party, a fact long shrouded in shameful silence.

“Munich had a harder time with this than all the other cities in Germany because it is also more tainted than any other city,” said Nerdinger, the son of a local resistance member.

“This is where it all began.”

Nerdinger said the aim of the “Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism” was to address how Munich, which prided itself on its thriving arts scene and convivial beer gardens, could see its civic spirit so perverted.

The four-floor exhibition offers explanatory texts in English and German, and period photographs and videos documenting jackboot marches and the city’s utter destruction by Allied bombing.

A chilling video graphic portrays the city’s Jewish community as points of light, with more and more extinguished as the deportations to the concentration camps gathered pace.

Nerdinger noted that he intentionally avoided displays full of crisp brown uniforms and giant swastika flags, saying he had no desire to showcase the Nazi “aesthetic”.

Instead, visitors find artifacts such as hand-scrawled sonnets found in the pocket of resistance member Albrecht Haushofer, who was executed just before the war’s end. Blood still stains the paper.

- Hitler ‘like a magician’-

The German Workers’ Party was founded in a Munich beer hall in 1919, and Hitler joined the same year.

In 1920, it became the National Socialist Germans Workers’ Party, the only political force allowed in the country after Hitler’s rise to power.

Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1ᙛ, Hitler used his subsequent trial for high treason as a platform to gain a national following.

A thwarted communist revolution and a crippling economic depression helped fuel a backlash that would turn Munich into a “hotbed of reactionary sentiment”, as the novelist Thomas Mann called it in 1926.

Here far-right thugs would find funding and legitimacy from the wide swathes of the upper middle class, which saw in Hitler a saviour.

In 1930, the Nazis established their headquarters at the Braunes Haus (Brown House) in an upscale part of the city centre, now the site of the museum.

Even after Hitler became German leader on January 30, 1933 in Berlin, it was in Munich that the Nazis duped European powers into signing the fateful agreement decreeing that Czechoslovakia must cede the Sudetenland, and launched the Kristallnacht pogrom.

Munich was also key to the planning of the concentration camp system, beginning with the first major prototype, Dachau, on the city’s outskirts in 1933. Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend a ceremony Sunday marking the camp’s 1945 liberation.

The exhibition also casts a critical eye on the post-war period, with top Nazis seamlessly continuing their political careers and neo-Nazi groups trying to revive widespread xenophobia.

The museum itself was long in coming, with its opening postponed four times amid local infighting and its original director summarily sacked after she criticised Munich authorities.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder said it was “never too late” to own up to the past.

“There’s a whole new generation that must know what happened and why it happened — the fact that people knew what was happening and remained silent,” he told AFP.

“It wasn’t just Austria and Germany — it was all of Europe that was silent to what was happening.”

Edgar Feuchtwanger, a೚-year-old Jewish native of Munich who fled to Britain in 1938, returned for the ceremony and acknowledged the city had a “difficult legacy to come to terms with”.

“People always ask me, ‘What did people think then? How could they have fallen for all that?’ And I have to say to them: Hitler seemed dramatically successful, he seemed like a magician,” he told AFP.

“And then when the rabbit came back out of the hat they didn’t notice or didn’t want to notice.”

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is organising the T-POP Festival 2015: Thailand Music Festival from May 22-23 at Ram Ratchaniwet (Ban Puen Palace) in Phetchaburi province, with the objective of boosting tourism.

TAT deputy governor Juthaporn Rerngronasa said, “The Thailand Music Festival is one of the Ǭ unique events listed under TAT’s 2015 Discover Thainess tourism campaign. Thainess can be found in many of Thailand’s annual festivals, but we have also created new events to enhance the awareness of the Thai way of happiness, and this T-POP Festival 2015 fits perfectly in our calendar of unique events to experience “Thainess” because many Thai pop stars have become popular internationally, especially in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan.”

The T-POP Festival 2015 is also organised to commemorate His Majesty King’s 88th birthday anniversary on Dec 5, 2015, with an exquisite tunnel in honour of his life and his commitment to Thailand. Upon entering the event�s grounds visitors will have the chance to walk through this wonderful tunnel and capture the moments before reaching the three event zones.

Apart from the concert, the Photo Station zone will feature creative mock-ups of tourist attractions and places of interest in Phetchaburi and nearby provinces, including Phra Ram Ratchaniwet (Ban Puen Palace), Cha-am beach, and the Hua Hin railway station.

Visitors will get a chance to win a TAT Nong Sukjai mascot doll when they shoot and share their selfies on the event’s facebook page – TPOPFEST2015.

The T-POP Festival 2015 free-entry concert will take place from 3pm to 10pm. Follow the event’s latest updates on facebook.com/TPOPFEST2015.

A local chef prepares food at the Raohe night market in Taipei. (AFP photo)

TAIPEI – Pungent slices of fermented tofu, piping hot pork buns and crisp green guava slices are some of Taiwan’s classic street eats, with the best stalls attracting queues of locals and visitors.

Now these no-frills favourites are being joined by a new wave of restaurants tapping in to the island’s abundant fresh produce and vibrant cuisine.

Their fusion of seasonal menus and slick interiors at modest prices is starting to create an international buzz — Conde Nast Traveller magazine has labelled Taiwan as the “foodie destination of 2015″.

The island’s star chef, Andre Chiang — who trained in France and runs the acclaimed Restaurant Andre in Singapore — recently opened his first venue on home turf, RAW, in northern Taipei.

It serves up seasonal Taiwanese produce crafted into what Chiang calls a “new interpretation” of the island’s culinary traditions.

“They are all humble ingredients — but when you start to match them in a different way, you create something interesting,” he said.

RAW’s seven-course menu changes every month and features 21 Taiwanese ingredients in peak season at the time.

Tiny shrimp nestle inside purple rice crackers; three types of cauliflower are layered onto thin wafers of chicken skin; a version of the island’s famed sweet treat, the pineapple cake, is presented as three semi-frozen cubes.

RAW, which opened in December, is part of 38-year-old Chiang’s mission to help carve out a fresh global identity for Taiwan.

“We used to be Taiwanese, with aboriginal local cuisine, then we were colonised for 50 years by the Japanese, then there was the takeover by the Chinese (nationalist) government.

“We can’t cut (those influences) out of our history.”

Now entrepreneurial restaurateurs are finding their feet, and it’s not just about the food.

“Small independent restaurants… are starting to take Taiwanese local produce and are doing it in a more international way, with both the cuisine and the design,” said Chiang.

The cavernous space at RAW, designed by Dutch architect Camiel Weijenberg, is dominated by two huge curved wooden counters made from Taiwanese spruce by local artisans.

The city’s growing reputation for creativity led Taipei to be named World Design Capital for 2016 by the International Council of the Societies of Industrial Design.

“People have studied abroad and are bringing ideas back with them — a lot has changed in the last year or two… there’s a big transition at the moment,” Weijenberg said.

At new restaurant Mume, three young chefs use Taiwanese produce to create Western dishes in a bid to fill the gap between simple island fare and pricey fine dining.

The cosy 32-seat venue decked out in dark wood and storm lamps also opened in December, tucked away in a quiet street in Taipei’s central Daan district.

“We’re starting to get quite a lot of international travellers, probably 20 to 30%,” said Hong Kong-born founder and chef Richie Lin, 34, who works with Australian chef Kai Ward, 24 and US chef Long Xiong, 32.

Mume serves up plates designed for sharing, from grilled pork neck and Wagyu beef tartare to squid, clams, and roasted romanesco broccoli, with an average spend of around Tw$2,000.

Desserts include an orange sorbet in an edible candied peel shell, designed to show off the best of Taiwanese citrus.

“As chefs we all like to use sustainable products that belong to the place,” said Lin, adding that 90% of ingredients on the menu are local.

- Old-school favourites -

But as the food and design scene evolves, Taiwan’s old-school street eats remain a must-try.

At Raohe night market in eastern Taipei, the queue at one family-run pork bun stall snakes down the road.

It has been serving up baked flaky pastry pockets filled with spicy pork — known as “hu jiao bing” or “pepper cakes” — for more than 20 years.

“The pork is mixed with 10 Chinese herbs. It originally came from China, from Xiamen, but we have adapted it. The pastry is more flexible and chewy and the herbs make the taste fresher,” said cook Yang Rui-fu, 38, whose sister set up the stall.

The pastry buns sell for Tw$50, with around 1,800 customers throughout the afternoon and evening.

Yang, who mans the stall’s charcoal ovens, says that with Taiwanese chefs travelling abroad and more tourists coming to the island, its cuisine is starting to earn a wider reputation.

“When I was young, we only had Taiwanese customers, but there are now more people from European countries,” as well as from across Asia, he said.

For French interns Simon Gosset, 24, and Keyvan Nybelen, 22, their month in Taiwan has been a culinary revelation.

Visitors stroll in the Hitsujiyama Park in Chichibu, suburban Tokyo on April 28, 2015. Blossoming moss phlox are expected to attract many visitors until the Japanese “Golden Week” holiday season in late April and early May. (AFP photo)

TOKYO — Spending by foreign travellers in Japan in the January-March period hit a record 706.6 billion yen (196 billion baht), up 64.4% from a year earlier, the government said Thursday.

The Japan Tourism Agency attributed the rise in spending on shopping, hotels, food and drink and transportation among other items mainly to strong consumption by tourists from China during the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays in February. A weaker yen also made Japanese products cheaper in local currency terms.

The current growth pace indicates spending by foreign travellers this year could top the annual record of more than 2 trillion yen last year, an agency official said.

By country, Chinese travellers spent 277.5 billion yen in total, up 133.7% from the previous year, followed by Taiwanese who spent 106.3 billion yen, up 46.3% and South Koreans who spent 72.5 billion yen, up 45.8%.

People from Hong Kong spent 54.1 billion yen, up 94.3%, followed by those from the United States, who spent 36.8 billion yen, up 30.7%.

Spending per foreign visitor rose 14.4% to 171,028 yen on average. The figure for Chinese travellers rose 20.9% to 300,434 yen, out of which around 177,000 yen was spent on shopping, the agency said.

The number of travelers to Japan in the three months rose 43.7% from a year earlier to 4.13 million, the Japan National Tourism Organisation said earlier.

The last-minute reprieve for a Filipino drug convict facing execution in Indonesia was hailed as a “miracle” in the Philippines, sparking jubilation yesterday.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino thanked Indonesia for its “sense of fairness” in granting the 11th-hour reprieve to Mary Jane Veloso, Ǿ, convicted in 2010 of trying to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Indonesia.

Hundreds of activists who had been holding a vigil since Sunday outside the Indonesian Embassy in Manila shouted, wept, clapped and raised their fists after one of their leaders announced that Veloso was not among the eight executed early yesterday morning.

In radio interviews, Veloso’s family said their prayers had been answered and thanked Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

“Miracles do come true,” Veloso’s mother Celia said.

Amid the euphoria, however, there were calls for caution.

Lawyer Edre Olalia, a member of Veloso’s legal team, said while Indonesia’s action was “extraordinary, almost unprecedented, we are daunted and apprehensive because we have a huge job, a big challenge, ahead of us”.

Several Philippine newspapers, meanwhile, were caught out by the last-minute reprieve, with their headlines assuming Veloso had already been executed.

The top-selling Philippine Daily Inquirer ran the dramatic headline “Death came before dawn”. Abante, the country’s best-selling Filipino-language tabloid, had a black-themed front page together with a picture of Veloso, head bowed, and a headline in capitals that translates as “Farewell, Mary Jane”.

The Philippines will now prosecute a suspected human trafficker, as it tries to save Veloso.

Herminio Coloma, Aquino’s spokesman, said in an interview aired on CNN Philippines that the Department of Justice is already building a case against Maria Kristina Sergio, 47, “that will be the basis for Indonesia to consider new inputs and reconsider the sentence that has been imposed on (Veloso)”.

Indonesia granted Veloso the last-minute reprieve after Manila sought her assistance as a state witness in a human trafficking case against Sergio.

At a separate news briefing, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Aquino, in his last-minute bid to save Veloso, had invoked the 2004 Asean Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which binds signatories to help one another investigate or prosecute criminal cases.

In professing her innocence, Veloso has always insisted that Sergio, an African identified only as “Ike”, and a third unnamed suspect had duped her into smuggling the packets of heroin sewn into the lining of her luggage.

Veloso said Sergio, who was her recruiter, lured her with the promise of a job as a domestic maid in Malaysia, 20,000 pesos (about US$450) in pocket money, a motorcycle and a mobile phone.

On Tuesday, hours before Veloso’s scheduled execution, Sergio and her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao went to a police precinct in a city 120km north of the capital Manila to seek protective custody, saying that she has been receiving death threats.